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U.S., Britain lock up embassies in Yemen

Posted: Monday, January 04, 2010

By ANNE GEARAN and LEE KEATH

SAN'A, Yemen - Western embassies in Yemen closed Sunday after fresh threats from al-Qaida, and the White House expressed alarm at the terror group's expanded reach in the poor Arab nation where an offshoot apparently ordered the Christmas Day plot against a U.S. airliner.

President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, cited "indications al-Qaida is planning to carry out an attack against a target" in the capital, possibly the embassy, and estimated the group had several hundred members in Yemen. Security reasons also led Britain to act. It was not known when the embassies would reopen.

The U.S. is worried about the spread of terrorism in Yemen, a U.S. ally and aid recipient, Brennan said, but doesn't consider the country a second front with Afghanistan and Pakistan in the fight against terrorism.

As to whether U.S. troops might be sent to Yemen, Brennan replied: "We're not talking about that at this point at all." He pledged to provide the Yemeni government with "the wherewithal" to take down al-Qaida.

Britain and the United States are assisting a counterterrorism police unit in Yemen as fears grow about the increasing threat of international terrorism originating from the country.

The Obama administration claims that the suspect in the plot against the Detroit-bound plane was trained and armed by the al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen.

The Transportation Security Administration announced Sunday that, starting today, passengers flying into the United States from Nigeria, Yemen and other "countries of interest" will be subject to enhanced screening techniques, such as body scans and pat-downs.

Yemen is a poor, decentralized and predominantly Muslim country on the Arabian Peninsula. It is the ancestral homeland of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, and the site of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 U.S. sailors. A 2008 attack on the U.S. Embassy killed one American.

Given the active threat from al-Qaida, "we're not going to take any chances," Brennan said from Washington during appearances on four Sunday talk shows.

Sen. Joe Lieberman identified three instances in which terrorists or sympathizers penetrated or evaded U.S defenses last year - shootings at a military recruiting station and an Army base and the airline attack - and said all three were linked to Yemen.

"We've got to focus there pre-emptively, and I'm confident we will," said Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut.

The Yemeni government, which issued no official comment on the embassy closures, often is friendly to the West but the population is mistrustful of Western motives and influence. Yemen has pledged to clamp down on militancy, but government control is weak outside the capital and the country has a history of freeing some alleged militants and tolerating others.

The Obama administration is growing more vocal about both the threat and the San'a government's limitations. Brennan said Westerners are at risk in Yemen until the government gets a better handle on extremism.

The U.S. will look case by case at whether to repatriate the remaining approximately 90 Yemeni detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, Brennan said.

Seven of 42 Guantanamo detainees freed by the Obama administration were returned to Yemen.